[quote=RayBob]Get a Hamby's premium keel guard and don't worry about beaching it. They advertise you can pull up on a concrete ramp with it without damaging anything. [/quote

I lightly beach mine on concrete ramp all the time, drop poles, load boat . Keeps a lot of mud off the carpet

Hamby is a must. If you have steer clips don't forget to take them off or after launching you will be wondering what the h@## is wrong with my steering and like said earlier you will forget your plug but hopefully only once and close to the trailer. Congrats on your boat.

I've forgot to put the plug in with every boat I've owned. So far, none have sunk to the bottom.

My Stratos had a need plug that was on little plastic slides. If I forgot the plug, the water flowing into the boat would suck the plug back into the hole. This would cause a very slow leak, but I could actually keep fishing and the bilge would kick on ever hour or so.

The Skeeter doesn't have that same design, so I had to run back to the ramp and put it on the trailer.

Take me with you and I'll show you everything you need to know.

Be respectful at the ramp and on the water. The season is starting to pick up and the ramps are already getting crazy. Saw a guy the other day try to back in 4 times. Finally gets the boat to the edge of the water and stops. He gets out of the truck and changes shirts, puts on sunscreen, flip flops, takes straps off, plug in, etc. Meanwhile there's 4 trucks in line waiting. Also had a guy come flying into an area headed right towards me maybe 50 yards away and he kills the motor. Trolls up to me and asks me if I've caught anything and proceeds to fish like it was nothing.

Nice first rig for sure!

Be careful your first few times out on new water. Learn the lake and know where it's safe to run. Navionics chip is a must.

Have a cash stash so you can make repairs when you need to.

Plug, keys, life jackets... jumper cables
Always try to help out a stranded boater

Always unstrap the boat from the trailer and always pull your trolling motor up. Your now getting into a high performance boat so take it easy and learn the boat. If you have a hydraulic jack plate make sure to learn where to set it to help prevent chine walking at high speeds. If you've never experienced it you will pucker the first time.

Break that Hammer in and then drive it like you stole it

If you can't see it it's not there and the faster you go the less in water to hit anything. WOT is you friend.

Thanks everyone! Great info. I already called some places to get a Hamby installed.

I just made a similar move from 17.5 aluminum boat to Nitro Z20 a few months ago. The biggest thing for me to get used to was difference in weight and how that affected unloading/loading back on the trailer. With the aluminum, basically level of trailer wheel wells seemed to be roughly same for loading/unloading every time. With more weight I found I had to back in a lot further to unload. I had a very hard lesson that I didn't want to pull in near as far though when loading and had to find that magic trailer depth to help getting boat lined up and bow on bumper. Luckily ramp was clear that day for a good amount of time while I struggled. Once I found the magic loading depth it's now a breeze but that first time was a doozy.

Congrats on the new boat. Other than the figuring out loading I've loved everything else about the upgrade, hope you do too.

this!